The Transportation Security Administration launched the “TSA Cares” program to assist disabled fliers just four months ago, but a story making the rounds today proves that the TSA definitely does not. The Frank family was traveling from New York City's JFK airport to Florida, and were abruptly pulled aside after a dispute over how their 7-year-old daughter Dina was screened. The child is developmentally disabled and has cerebral palsy. She walks with crutches and leg braces.

With her crutches and orthotics, Dina cannot walk through metal detectors and instead is patted down by security agents. The girl, who is also developmentally disabled, is often frightened by the procedure, her father said. Marcy Frank usually asks the agents to introduce themselves to her daughter, but those on duty on Monday were exceptionally aggressive, Joshua Frank said, and he began to videotape them with his iPhone.

“And the woman started screaming at me and cursing me and threatening me,” he said.

Here's the best part! The TSA has issued a statement defending the screeners. Snip: “TSA has reviewed the incident and determined that our officers followed proper screening procedures in conducting a modified pat-down on the child.”

Sure makes one wonder what it will take (in this toxic political time) to convene a congressional investigation into the TSA, doesn’t it? i guess it’ll take performing one of their acts of terrorism directly on a member of congress, or one of their citizen-united employers.

He’s a Senator. Senators are Serious People, even when they are a little kookypants. I’m guessing McCain, Graham or Lieberman would have gotten the same treatment and the same nothing would have happened.

All part of the plan. And it originates somewhere near the Oval Office if not in it. Nothing the TSA does is with out ordered from the DHS. With one change in orders it could all come in line with common sense but first they will need to find that.

Wheeeeell… Cerebral Palsy is obviously a name of a terrorist organisation. Any trained TSA agent will immediately notice this and act accordingly. And developmentally disabled is just a cunning code word for Evol Overlord. I mean, just look at that girl! Doesn’t a sweet smile like that immediately reveal her as an Evil Terrorist just waiting to blow up the world??? Huh, HUH?!!?!? I thought so!

Ahhh, poor TSA. Are all the mean citizens being nasty at you because you shit on their fourth and fifth amendment rights at the cost of billions of dollars to fail to stop a threat that ranks below choking on your own food? Do you feel bad when they get pissed because the power you have gobbled up has literally only been used to further corruption and criminal schemes, and never once actually stopped an American from being harmed?

Try “bear the brunt of being the national bully” instead of “be the brunt of all the bullying”. The way you said it puts the TSA as the victim of bullying.

And there’s no worries on that score – this nation has no shortage of bullies in positions of authority. And that’s been true since, oh, the founding of the nation. Seems to be true of every nation. Only way to deal with it is to make things as transparent as possible until people get fed up and kick the bully in the nads.

Every time someone defends the TSA or this absolutely bullshit security theater, flat our call them a god damn coward. Don’t tell them that their fears are unfounded, don’t try and argue the effectiveness of the security, just start at the top. You are a coward. If they start babbling about terrorist, point out again that they are a coward. If they talk about 9/11 and how those families that lost people felt, point out that they are a coward. If they babble how it isn’t needed for them, it is need for “other people”, point out that those people are cowards that they should stop flying.

This is the change that needs to happen.

Defeating “terrorism” in the US is absurdly easy. Just don’t act like a god damn coward, and it fixes itself. The “terrorist” are not a threat to your life. McDonalds is a threat to your life. Cancer is a threat to your life. Choking on the food you shovel into your mouth is even a threat to your life. Terrorism is not a threat to your life any more than shark attacks are… less so in fact.

Yes, a terrorist might blow up an airplane. A few hundred people die, and that is all well and sad. However, we somehow manage to solider on with total indifference ignoring the millions of people that die each year for boring things, like eating themselves to death. No one is pissing themselves to spend billions of dollars setting up a massive forest of lightening rods to prevent people from being struck by lightening. Why the fuck then are we pissing away billions of dollars and our civil liberty on the TSA?

Strip the TSA. Give them a full cavity “freedom fondle”. Gut the safety regs down a quick x-ray of your bag and a metal detector. Will it catch everything? Nope. Who cares?

If this scares you because you are a coward, great! I don’t want you on my plane. The TSA is god damn useless, but time and time again, it has been proven that brave passengers are not. Brave passengers are literally the ONLY thing to stop bombings and take overs. If not getting a cowards freedom fondle scares away the cowards, it just means that airline travel is safer.

Braver Americans stormed beach heads where every other man was dropped dead. Braver Americans faced police beatings during the civil rights movement. I’m not asking the average citizen to show the courage of a soldier or a civil rights activities protesting Jim Crow laws. The only thing I am asking as that you keep control of your bladder long enough to make a quick and utterly safe flight without mewing to the government for a freedom fondle. Once you are off the airplane you can go stuff your face with all the BigMacs you want and work towards an early grave.

If someone defends the TSA, call them a coward. Until we make it socially unacceptable to act like a fucking coward, politicians who support coward policies will keep getting elected.

“Yes, a terrorist might blow up an airplane. A few hundred people die, and that is all well and sad.”

This is the part that’s more than a little bit hard to sell – essentially “they might bag a few planes, but man up, bitches.”

There are areas where the compromise between preventative measures and risk have been made, but they’ve been *tacit* decisions. I ride the NYC subways knowing that attacks in Europe have firebombed trains and allegedly multiple plots to do so have been hatched here. The city has made some efforts to “protect” the trains but they (for the most part) stop short of hassling people and are obviously inadequate to stop an attack. They’ve dialed back the bag searches and pretty much stopped parading around with machine guns as a “show of force.” (Big exception is that they surveil all Muslims in the area, but I’m just focusing on acting as a physical goalkeeper in ways analogous to the TSA.)

How did this drawdown happen? Not by some overt announcement. No politician asked people to vote for him because he was going to end bag searches. It just happened. And yes, New Yorkers decided it was acceptable – nobody’s calling for more security.

That’s how it needs to happen with the TSA. You are never going to get people to endorse the end of specific tactics – let’s just stop screening shoes, let’s let liquids back on the planes, let’s stop patting people down. It has to happen quietly, or they have to figure out how to couch changes in a way that sounds like they aren’t increasing risk.

Also, the reforms would have to be *bipartisan*. That’s another huge factor, the fear of politicians that they are going to get blamed for not preventing the next attack.

So, you are not wrong. People are cowards. They are fearful and inordinately so. BUT explicitly telling them they should accept more risk is a losing argument, IMO.

During the Blitzkrieg, London was carpet bombed. Every night. Relentlessly. For weeks.

And yet somehow Britain didn’t devolve into having the government inspect its children’s genitals for explosives. Ending the TSA is not so much asking people to accept more risk as it is scaling back the insane paranoia that “protects” freedom by obliterating it.

I agree in spirit but the analogy doesn’t work. Whatever the situation resembles superficially, the logistics are completely different. You can’t hide a Heinkel He 111 in a child’s underpants, even theoretically.

You would have to look at something like, say, how the British security forces were about enforcing blackouts during a raid, or maybe evacuation procedures. I don’t know.

My point is that you have to make some comparison of how the security forces tried to address the potential “Enemy” within the actual citizenry. I still don’t see much potential for a good analogy there.

I disagree. Calling someone a flat out coward to their face is amazingly successful. Legitimizing cowardice by pretending like their fears are well founded is what gets the shit we have today. I have taken the “you are a god damn coward, get off my plane” argument out and about and found that it pretty much convinces everyone from hippy leftist to religious conservative nuts.

It strikes a cord because it lays out the truth of the matter in stark terms. Are you afraid of one of the most rare ways to die (while you stuff a Big Mac in your face) and want to give up your liberty over your stupid and childish fears, or do you want to see this system dismantled? I have yet to see a person survive a few minutes of arguing for cowardice before conceding.

No, tactful drawn is the method used when you have already surrendered and decided to treat people like scared children. Calling people cowards to their face is the method to restore sanity. If it becomes a common meme that people who want this kind of bullshit security are cowards, I think you could see this crap dismantled shockingly quick.

Save the ‘tactful draw down’ bullshit for asshole politicians. It is 10+ years since 9/11 and security has only gotten stupider. As a citizen, it is your responsibility to help be the change by being loud and vocal. If you pass along the idea that only cowards will piss themselves in terror unless they get a good thorough “freedom fondle” before boarding an airplane to just a handful of people, and they do the same, it can effect a massive change.

The TSA are not police; they are a superfluous government monster created out of a knee-jerk reaction. The TSA is to the War on Terror as Sedition was to World War I, and Japanese Internment Camps was to World War II. It’s something we’ll look back on and wonder, “What the hell were they thinking?”

It’s an expensive “war powers” boondoggle that can’t and won’t address the problem it was created for while simultaneously violating the Constitution in multiple fashions. It’s days are numbered, and the more child and elder abuse they continue to cause, the sooner the people will make sure it’s finished.

You’re more likely to die on a street than for any reason on a plane, let alone terrorism on a plane. That money could be better spent put towards safer roads if you’re that worried about transportation deaths.

I agree with you , and I hope the TSA’s days are numbered I hate them like poison !!! , I was merely pointing out the fact that we have grown so accustomed to seeing these types of violations – we are too numb or stupid to voice a collective opinion to change this reality

The reply suggests to me that the TSA is underpaid and understaffed, cannot attract anyone with a modicum of professionalism to take their McJobs, and so they are forced to defend the crap that the screeners commit. They can’t fire them as they can’t replace them, and disciplining them only makes them sullen and behave even worse with the passengers.

The current system is simply unsustainable. The money being spent on expensive toys needs to be spent instead on improving working conditions, training and salaries. We need to attract good people to these jobs and stop treating them as a place to put failed burger flippers.

1. We Western Europeans are tired of USians telling them that the US is some sort of freedom paradise all the while we live in some sort of socialist-commie-nazi-loving fake democracy. At least since 9/11 the opposite is true (apart from the “socialist-commie” part). Torture NDAA, PAtriot, secret trials, TSA the list is endless – We like these ’cause we like to laugh in the face of those flag waving ‘MUURRRICAANs

2. The USians mentioned above get a taste of their own medicine. Before 9/11 just those dirty brown foreigners overseas had the opportunity to experience “freedom US-style” – getting humiliated in their own country by thugs claiming to preserve/bring freedom. But please go the extra mile and start killing and torturing already (preferable guests at wedding parties)

I’m loathe to defend the TSA, but parents: no one cares about your kids but you. If you can’t control them in a given situation the people around you might cut you some slack, but they certainly aren’t under any obligation to and you have no business complaining if they don’t.

So many layers of WTF here, I hardly know where to start.
– WTF is up with your assertion that nobody except parents care whether or not their children are abused by government employees?
– WTF is up with the idea that not treating a disabled child like shit constitutes being ‘under any obligation’ to anything except common decency and the basic social contract of post-cave-dweller life?
– WTF do you mean by ‘if you can’t control’? Did I miss some part of the story where the child bit someone or hurled feces?
– WTF is up with the idea that having a child who is incapable of acting like a victim droid means that her parents shouldn’t complain? Maybe we should just sedate children before they travel so that they can be more conveniently pawed by the TSA thugs.

In addition to all the helpings of WTF here, I’m thinking from a policy standpoint: at some point the ADA, Constitution and executive privilege will collide in a massive shower of sparks. (And the neoconservative Supreme Court will clean it all up, I’m sure.)

“the same security procedure everyone else has to go through” is abuse.
But the conduct of the screening in these cases also broke TSA policies- the TSA’s own policies state:
“Know that at no time during the screening process will you be separated from your child.”
“Know that if a private screening is required, you should escort and remain with your child during the private screening process.” (relevant to the 4-year old’s case)
“Inform the Security Officer if you think the child may become upset
during the screening process as a result of their disability.”
“Offer suggestions on how to best accomplish the screening to minimize any confusion or outburst for the child.”

Never under any circumstances is it OK for a TSA agent to scream and curse at a parent for documenting the TSAs bad conduct. Nor is it OK to pass a family through screening, then wait an hour, then claim they need to be screened again, causing them to miss their flight.

Congratulations on your restraint. A couple of years ago that sort of post to which you just replied would have gotten instantly disemvoweled, at least. I’m not sure I could match your moderation in this case.

Perhaps if TSA employees were granted proper civil service status, something that should’ve been done when the organization was created, these jobs would attract a better class of more professional people. As it is these jobs don’t pay Hardly enough to live on, nor any benefits that makes them an attractive career choice to anyone who doesn’t already have very limited career choices. So what you’re left with is a huge turnover in the workforce, and folks who are only interested in temporary employment until they can find a Real job that offers genuine financial security for themselves and their families.

It’s interesting that a society would relegate the people responsible for their safety and security to third class employee status, so that those people have no job security, no union protections, and no future in these professions. So why would you expect anything better than third class service from such people?

TSA agents were recently bribed by drug dealers to overlook drug shipments that were passing through their security stations. No doubt this is a regular occurrence, and if real terrorists were genuinely interested in getting on a plane, it would be easy enough to bribe such workers. So what TSA really does is create the illusion of security, protection from the average nut with no resources and no ability to plan, and nothing more.

I suppose it’s going to take another 9/11 like tragedy to get the corporate own profit driven Vermin who currently rule the transportation sector, much as they ruled the Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Maybe when a few thousand more Americans die, only then will they say to themselves, gosh I guess we should offer these people some kind of job security end civil service protections in order to attract people of character and conscience to these positions. Until then nobody should complain, and be very thankful to whatever deity you worship, or think yourself very lucky that you make it off the plane alive these days. Because in a democratic society, it is you who are ultimately responsible for your own safety, and responsible for allowing a third rate organization like the TSA to be responsible for the safety of the people you care about. When the realization finally hits you, remember it is you who is ultimately responsible for for these experiences.

Who‘s responsible? Voters in a two-party system often don’t have a choice.

Those with their brains in gear would have to prefer to see the US become a more egalitarian society; their division of wealth is barbaric. But that didn’t stop Obama pointing the world’s biggest firehose of cash at a bunch of uber-fucking-gigacrooks.

I don’t fly. I do not anticipate flying. I have an observation, though. TSA worker bees are no different that rentacops. Rentacops are paid almost nothing to watch over the property of the riches. A rentacop can be put into personal danger by arsonists, robbers, and the like. TSA thugs are in no personal danger. TSA thugs can summon armed people to their aid instantly, while the real rentacop can only dial 911 and hope for the best.

We are unique among our fellow Federal employees because we do not use the standard GS grading system you may be familiar with. We use an “SV” grading system, which is a system of discrete grades with pay ranges that differ from GS pay ranges. These discrete grades, which are identified by letters rather than numbers, have minimum and maximum rates.

In the table below, we show the ranges for each pay band.

Pay Band
Minimum
Maximum

A
$17,083
$24,977

B
$19,570
$28,546

C
$22,167
$33,303

D
$25,518
$38,277

E
$29,302
$44,007

F
$33,627
$50,494

G
$39,358
$60,982

H
$48,007
$74,390

I
$58,495
$90,717

J
$71,364
$110,612

K
$85,311
$132,237

L
$101,962
$155,500

M
$120,236
$155,500

The above rates are basic pay rates and do not include locality pay. 2011 and 2012 basic pay rates are limited to $155,500. 2011 and 2012 adjusted pay rates (base pay plus locality) are limited to $172,550.

Listen, I agree that the TSA is safety theater that doesn’t actually keep us safe…but come on. Smuggling weapons in via cruches & wheelchairs is a an actual possibility. No more absurd than arbitrarily searching everyone. If this kid had some crazy domestic terrorist parents they could be using her for a mule. It isn’t CRAZY. Again, I think the TSA is a waste of money with poor ethics & poor practices, but this isn’t outrageous.

Did you read the article at all? Or even the bit that is quoted above?

Her parents aren’t upset because they searched her.

Marcy Frank usually asks the agents to introduce themselves to her daughter, but those on duty on Monday were exceptionally aggressive, Joshua Frank said, and he began to videotape them with his iPhone. “And the woman started screaming at me and cursing me and threatening me,” he said.

“Exceptionally agressive”. To a scared kid with cerebral palsy.

That’s why they’re upset – because TSA doesn’t pay well enough to hire people who can engage in a minimum of human compassion while going about their duties.

And no, it isn’t all TSA agents. But it sure as hell does seem that TSA attracts a far greater proportion of jumped-up wannabe cops who couldn’t make the cut for mall cop. It’s a tough job, but I imagine if they hired professionals and paid them well to do it, we’d all be better off.

What I’m saying is–I agree with you? Which is why leading with her age & disease is a bad move. Because the problem is the TSA, on a fundamental level, not the TSA when the TSA hassles young, old or sick people.

Nothing? I guess you can’t possibly put enough disclaimers in a comment (“I think the TSA is a waste of money with poor ethics & poor practices,” or “…the TSA is safety theater that doesn’t actually keep us safe”) to keep people on the internet from disagreeing with you. While actually agreeing.

I just think when people narrow the argument to “look at them violating the reasonable expectation of rights for this tearjerker case!” it misses the point that the tearjerker cases aren’t SPECIAL, they are trampling everyone’s rights.

That’s because thousands of travellers moving every day without incident is not to the TSA’s credit. That’s what happened before the TSA too. At the amount the TSA costs, ‘not too much worse off than we were’ is much too low a bar to set.

You have some f’ed up sense of priorities if you think that getting x-rayed, prodded and sexually groped by some mouth-breathing federal rent-a-cop is just some “every day incident” that we should all be pleased with.

Not everyone has the option to “not get on a plane”. You know that, right? Some jobs require it. Or maybe someone’s family member died or is dying and they live too far away to drive. Or maybe they are on a tight schedule so driving or taking a bus is not an option. Or maybe they just want to go across the ocean.

The answer shouldn’t be, “Just don’t fly!!” How lazy can you get??

We should work to actually FIX the problem, not put our collective heads in the sand.

Oh! I have a better idea. If you are such a fucking coward that the thought of a one in a few million chance that your airplane might get blown up by the “scary” terrorist causes you to piss yourself in terror, don’t fly.

We have this entire thing backwards. We shouldn’t be fucking the entire population because a few people are chicken shit assholes afraid of a method of dying that ranks right up there with shark attacks. We should be telling the cowards to suck it up or not fly, not telling everyone else to bend over to accept freedom fondles and robbing the tax coffers to pay for cowards.

They are used as weapons only when passengers and pilots are taught to not resist. Try using an airplane as a bomb again and the passengers instantly riot and kill the hijackers. Even if the hijackers managed to get a weapon on that could kill 100+ people and not destroy the plane, the hijacker would then find themselves dead once again as the pilot displays how violently he can throw people in the cabin around. Even if by some magic the hijacker fought through the entire passenger list, found a way to open the reinforced door, and got into the cabin, the hijacker is STILL fucked. The pilot is going to make it his dying breath to kick the plan into a suicide dive which will toss the hijacker off and render it useless as a weapon.

Also, stop being such a fucking coward. Airplanes are not going to fall on your god damn head. You are going to die of heart disease or cancer. Maybe if you are very lucky, you will die of something exciting, like a car accident. The fucking terrorist are not going to kill. Your fat American ass is going to die of something boring and mundane in a hospital bed with a catheter shoved up your dick.

Your coward delusion that you are going to die anything but a boring and normal death isn’t a reason why I should have to give up my liberty. Afraid of airplanes hitting you on the head, go live out in the countryside. Even a coward must realize that the terrorist are not going to steal a 747 to hit your shitty cabin in the woods.

It is arguable to suggest that the TSA does work and deters terrorists as there has been no incidences since 9/11 thus proving terrorists are terrified to fly in the US due to the high probability of detection.

It is arguable to suggest that the *actions of the passengers during 9/11* did work and deters terrorists as there has been no incidences since 9/11 thus proving terrorists are
terrified to fly in the US due to the high probability of *being attacked by the passengers*.

Fixed that for you. Seriously, regular people on a plane, within an hour of the event, figured out how to permanently stop that method of attack. It won’t happen again in our lifetimes. Additional incidents where “terrorists” tried to ignite their shoes or genitals were also thwarted, not by TSA, but by passengers. Disband the whole damn department. Place a baseball bat at every seat on the plane too… security situation resolved quite effectively.

It is arguable to suggest that the TSA does work and deters terrorists as there has been no incidences since 9/11 thus proving terrorists are terrified to fly in the US due to the high probability of detection.

Well for one thing, there have been incidents (shoe bomber, underwear bomber) which weren’t caught by the TSA or any other screener but were caught by alert passengers.

“The Rick’s Cafe Gambling Association has reviewed the incident and determined that Captain Renault followed proper screening procedures and is not shocked that there is no gambling in this establishment.”

Not a fan of the TSA, but honestly, aren’t folks kinda jumping to a conclusion here? At least according to this article, all we know is that the girl’s father feels like HE was being attacked by the TSA verbally after attempting to videotape TSA agents patting down his daughter with a cell phone camera. He should be allowed to do that, but so far all we have of proof of this incident is this:

“…those on duty on Monday were exceptionally aggressive, Joshua Frank said, and he began to videotape them with his iPhone.

“And the woman started screaming at me and cursing me and threatening me,” he said.”
Where’s the video? What does he mean by, “exceptionally aggressive”? I’m not defending the TSA here, just asking for a bit more clarity on the accusations.

I used to date, and live with a person who performed background checks for various government jobs. In addition to all branches of the military, she did background checks for customs and TSA agents. I was somewhat shocked to learn that the majority of customs and TSA agents are convicted felons. Not to say that people can’t change, but when the TSA was created, the vast majority of applicants were felons, and people who failed various other law enforcement exams. People who want so badly to be cops, or have any authority, but were deemed too unstable to hold that responsibility, these are your TSA agents. And felons. No wonder they push the boundaries of their powers, because all those 95 yr old vets, granny hugging 4 year olds, and 7 year-olds with cerebral palsy need to be taught a little thing called respect.

Attention Google. Please add a TSA abuse tab to “Google News”. Be very handy, and I’m sure would see lots of news items, I mean, it’s every other day at least that you see something here on boing boing.

One other thing stands out to me in the TD artile: One hour after letting them leave for the gate “agents reappeared with a manager to tell them that proper protocol had not been followed, and that Dina had to be screened after all”.

Surely they need to search *everyone she may have come in contact with* after passing through security if they want to maintain the illusion of knowing what they do.